Abstract
Dielectric elastomer actuators are “stretchable capacitors” that can offer muscle-like strain and force response to an applied voltage. As generators, dielectric elastomers offer the promise of energy harvesting with few moving parts. Power can be produced simply by stretching and contracting a relatively low-cost rubbery material. This simplicity, combined with demonstrated high energy density and high efficiency, suggests that dielectric elastomers are promising for a wide range of energy-harvesting applications. Indeed, dielectric elastomers have been demonstrated to harvest energy from human walking, ocean waves, flowing water, blowing wind, pushing buttons, and heat engines. While the technology is promising and advances are being made, there are challenges that must be addressed if dielectric elastomers are to be a successful and economically viable energy-harvesting technology. These challenges include developing materials and packaging that sustain a long lifetime over a range of environmental conditions, designing the devices that stretch the elastomer material uniformly, and system issues such as practical and efficient energy-harvesting circuits.
This chapter was adapted from “Dielectric elastomers: Stretching the capabilities of energy harvesting,” by Roy D. Kornbluh, Ron Pelrine, Harsha Prahlad, Annjoe Wong-Foy, Brian McCoy, Susan Kim, Joseph Eckerle and Tom Low, in MRS Bulletin, Volume 37 (March 2012), pp. 246–253. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank their colleagues at SRI International, whose efforts contributed to the work presented here. We would also like to thank the numerous clients and government funding agencies whose support over the past 20 years has enabled much of this work. In particular, Shuiji Yonemura and Mikio Waki of HYPER DRIVE Corp. have generously supported our development of the ocean wave power-harvesting systems.
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Kornbluh, R.D. et al. (2013). Stretching the Capabilities of Energy Harvesting: Electroactive Polymers Based on Dielectric Elastomers. In: Elvin, N., Erturk, A. (eds) Advances in Energy Harvesting Methods. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5705-3_16
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